The Shores of Spain (23 page)

“The way I understand it,” Duilio said, “is that I can talk to you, Costa, but not her. So this is simple. If she attacks me, I’ll shoot you.”

“Run, Inês,” Costa said very quietly.

The woman drew herself up to her full height and crossed her arms over her bare chest. “I demand to speak with your mate.”

Because she won’t lower herself to deal with me
. Duilio took a deep breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Oriana and Vas Neves emerging from the house. He turned back to Costa. “Tell her that can be arranged.”

*   *   *

M
ADRID

M
arina stared up at the magnificent steel and glass roof of the train station that rose overhead. She’d waited alone with their bags for half an hour now if the nearest clock was accurate. People hurried past or waited like her, an ebb and flow determined by the arrival and departure of the trains, although she suspected that the platforms would be far busier than this were it any other day of the week.

She watched her fellow passengers, noting an unusual suitcase here, a striking outfit there. One woman walked past wearing a navy skirt and a blue-and-white-striped shirtwaist that Marina particularly
liked. She would have to suggest that to the seamstress back in the Golden City. Most passengers scarcely glanced
her
way. She was merely one woman dressed in her Sunday best, waiting.

Joaquim sat on the far side of the station where he could see her. He was watching for anyone who might be watching her, a traveler who might have followed them from Lisboa and gone through their luggage. It could have been anyone on that train, even one of the stewards. Given the ambassador’s warning about men being under the spell of the Canaries, Marina understood the reason for Joaquim’s caution.

But traveling across Iberia took money. If someone had followed them from the islands—or just from Lisboa—they had invested a great deal of money already.

Joaquim came striding toward her then, his handsome face lighting with a smile. When he reached her side, he bowed over her gloved hand. “I cannot believe a lady so lovely is waiting for me. I’ve kept thinking that as I watched you.” He leaned against the wall next to her. “I didn’t see anyone watching you. Not overtly anyway.”

“Well, that’s good to know.”

“Our train leaves in half an hour,” he added. “Shall we go settle in?”

They’d switched trains at Medina del Campo and were doing so here in Madrid as well, but they were in a first-class compartment the rest of the way to Barcelona. So they made their way to the proper platform and found their compartment on the train. It wasn’t as fine as the night train’s compartment, but clean and private. Once the train rattled out of Madrid, they sat in silence, watching the arid-looking Spanish countryside slip by.

Marina couldn’t imagine living here, so far from the sea. While the countryside had its own kind of beauty, her gills ached just thinking about it. What must it be like for the Canaries, forced to live in Spain? Had they, over the centuries, become accustomed to the dry air?

After a time she pulled the shade closed and turned up the
gaslight in the compartment, earning a quizzical look from Joaquim. “It all looks the same out there,” she said.

“The locals would probably disagree. I think it’s rather pretty.”

Marina shook her head. Joaquim was determined to find the best side of everything, but he didn’t have to worry about his gills drying out. “Shall I read?”

He leaned back against the wooden paneling of the compartment wall. “For now.”

So she spent the remainder of the morning reading from the novel Ana had packed for her, regaling Joaquim with the droll tale of the wealthy hero’s chaotic yet empty life in Paris.

CHAPTER 21

                   I
LHAS
DAS
S
EREIAS                   

W
hen Oriana had left Amado, Inês Guerra was a gawky twelve or thirteen. She’d matured past her awkwardness. She was as tall as Oriana herself now, although slimmer and strikingly beautiful. Her curling flaxen hair had darkened to a golden shade, and she wore it loose to emphasize her youth. She wore the bright blue of the Guerra line, a
pareu
with gold and orange embroidery at the hem.

Duilio escorted the fleeing lovers back into the main hall of the Guerra house. Inês was clearly angry, but she’d always been given to high drama. Lieutenant Costa stood a couple of feet behind her, wearing only a black
pareu
. He bore the winglike mark of the Guerra line across his chest, but Oriana assumed it was painted. He wouldn’t have had time to heal from a tattoo yet, would he? He was trying to maintain a defiant expression, but seemed far more intimidated than Inês. The swelling forming on the left side of his chin made him look a bit pathetic.

Oriana met the other woman’s eyes steadily, and saw that Inês knew quite well who had the upper hand. She gestured for the young woman to sit in a heavy wooden chair, and settled across from her in
its mate. Duilio came to stand behind her, just as Costa stood behind Inês’ chair. “Does your mother know you’re here, Inês?”

Inês’ chin lifted. “No.”

Oriana signaled that she needed to think. In truth, she wanted Inês to squirm for a moment. She surveyed Inês, taking in her lovely face, her tall and strong frame. “Why Costa?” she asked bluntly. “You could likely have had any male on this island. Your family is well connected and you appear to be healthy. Why choose a human male for your lover? Why a member of my household?”

As she’d expected, Inês’ jaw clenched at her use of the term
lover
. It carried the implication that Costa wasn’t actually her mate. Not yet.

“I love him,” Inês said.

Standing behind Inês’ chair, Costa actually blushed.

“Did you
call
him?” Oriana asked. “Did he have any choice in this?”

Costa impressed Oriana by not speaking out of turn. He’d clearly learned from the past few months watching Duilio hold his tongue. Perhaps he would adapt.

“No,” Inês said. “I did
call
him out to the beach that morning, but nothing more than seeking his presence, I swear. He has his own mind.”

Oriana looked at Costa’s face, permissible since he was part of
her
household no matter what the tattoo claimed. He hadn’t misunderstood that last question, one she’d asked out of concern for him. He nodded once, which reassured her. There was hope, then, that they could untangle this mess. “Then we won’t force him away from you, but we want answers before we commit to helping you out of this situation.”

Inês blinked, as if surprised that they might help them. “I had no right to take him, I know,” she said. “Not without his mother’s permission, or yours.”

“Then why not court him properly?”

“I wanted to,” Inês insisted. “When I learned he was coming here, to your grandmother’s house, I abandoned my job at the Spanish embassy and took the ferry here. I planned to approach you to ask permission, but on the morning after he arrived, he came to me on the beach and told me something had happened to his luggage. I realized the boy must have hidden in
his
bag, of all the terrible luck. I knew Julio would be blamed for the theft and sent back to Portugal. I couldn’t allow that.”

There was a great deal of information in that passionately delivered speech. “You knew about the theft?”

Inês drew herself up. “The boy is a thief, and he’d been in the Monteiro house, so he stole
something
. I couldn’t let Julio be blamed. He needed my protection.”

Oriana didn’t look at Costa’s face. Most Portuguese men would flinch at being referred to in such a way by a woman. But the relationship between Inês and Costa—Julio, she reminded herself—was their business. Perhaps he
wanted
her protection. If he was willing to defer to her regularly, their relationship might work out well. “And how did you know that the boy was in the house?”

“I was going out to the beach to see if I could find Julio not long after four. I saw the boy coming out of the shadows of your grandmother’s house toward the beach. He met the woman there, and they hid in one of my mother’s courtyards until dawn. Of all the places to pick,” she finished ruefully.

That was a coincidence?
Oriana felt her jaw clench. This was the time when she needed a Truthsayer, a witch who could parse out the truth of a speaker’s claims. Perhaps she should include a recommendation to hire one in her next report to the Foreign Office. “It never occurred to you to confront them? Or to come to us and report the theft so we could confront them?”

Inês folded her arms over her chest. “I’d been working at the Spanish embassy. I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But I told my mother to tell you about them.”

She’d talked her mother into lying about the woman and boy, a backward way of getting their description back to the Portuguese. It was a strange choice, but hinted that Inês wasn’t completely against them. “How did you know the boy was a thief?”

“Everyone at the embassy knew it,” she said with a graceful shrug.

Oriana regarded Inês silently, trying to decide what trouble spot in her story needed attention first. She finally decided she should start at the beginning. “How did you meet Costa?”

Inês took a deep breath. “Madam Davila paid me extra to suborn one of your guards. I could hardly turn her down without her growing suspicious of me.”

Madam Davila was the wife of the Spanish ambassador, and many felt she held the true power at that embassy, not her often-ailing husband. “Does she know you’re Amadean?”

Inês shook her head. “No. I used my father’s line name, Palmeira.”

“So you accepted Madam Davila’s charge?” Oriana prompted.

“Yes. I watched the guards for a few days and I picked Julio. I liked the way he smiled.”

Costa flushed again.

Oriana couldn’t fault Inês’ logic. She’d always admired Duilio’s smiles. She pressed on. “Where have you been meeting him?”

“At the park where the human men are allowed to walk.”

A small park was located between the embassy compounds, fenced so that only embassy personnel would enter—the one place they could get fresh air and exercise when not on duty. But there were sereia who loitered nearby to watch the spectacle of human males parading about . . . or to taunt them with their
calls
.

“At night?” Oriana asked, wondering if the lieutenant had ever had bad dreams as he’d told the captain. More likely he wasn’t sleeping at all.

“Yes,” Inês admitted.

“How did he get off embassy grounds to meet you?”

Inês shrugged.

Oriana suspected Duilio would have to get that out of Costa privately. Costa had erred in slipping out at night to meet a local woman, and later in running away with her rather than facing any accusations made against him. Inês made the mistake of assuming Costa would be blamed and also that she wouldn’t be believed. But Madam Davila’s misstep was the source of this; she’d chosen the wrong employee to spy on the Portuguese soldiers. She’d chosen an Amadean, a woman who might look on a human male as a potential mate rather than a simple target for seduction.

Oriana sat back in the chair, laying one hand on each arm. “I am willing to help you gain the approval of Costa’s family and therefore mine. We can transport you both to Portugal to seek them out, with the assurance that Costa won’t be jailed for desertion, if you are willing to meet certain conditions.”

Inês glanced up at Costa’s face. She understood, then, that he could be
imprisoned
for desertion of duties. She looked back to Oriana. “What do you want in return?”

“At this moment? Information.”

“And what happens to us?”

“Costa will resume his duties until he returns to Portugal. You will be allowed to stay at my grandmother’s house as a guest of the mission. When he goes back to Portugal, you will go with him and seek his family’s permission to marry. He will resign his position with the military. Then you will both be free to return here.”

“And he won’t be charged?” Inês asked cautiously.

“Not so long as we can claim his absence for the past week was an effort to track
you
.”

Inês sat back, mouth agape. “That’s ridiculous.”

Oriana tapped her nails on the arm of the chair, and then recalled that her aunt Jovita had done the same thing when vexed. She stilled her fingers. “Not at all. Only his captain and Lieutenant Benites knew he didn’t have permission to leave. They are, I believe, willing to support that ridiculous premise to safeguard the overall
reputation of the mission. For all the others know, Costa’s been on a special assignment all this time.”

That wasn’t strictly the truth. All the guards
suspected
Costa’s defection, but since the captain and Benites had kept quiet, they couldn’t prove he’d left without orders.

Inês sat back in her chair, eyes narrowed.

“Or are you suggesting it’s ridiculous,” Oriana continued, “because he couldn’t possibly have found you if he was trying?”

Inês fumed, but couldn’t affirm that in Costa’s presence. “We’ll take your offer,” she said firmly. “Now, what do you want to know?”

*   *   *

D
uilio caught Costa’s eye and nodded toward the far archway.

Costa glanced down at Inês and gestured discreetly toward the door. She nodded, granting her permission, so he followed Duilio from the main hall. Duilio waited until they’d gotten into a hallway before asking, “Do you miss trousers yet?”

Costa returned a perplexed look. “How did you know?”

“It’s the one thing I miss. I could go bare-chested and without shoes daily, but there are days I wish trousers were acceptable here.”

“Inês says I should start a new fashion.”

What an unusual thing for Inês to say
. Duilio wondered if she meant that, or if she’d merely said it to appease Costa. He opened the door that led to one of the sitting rooms, shooed the lieutenant inside, and closed the door. “Who was helping you get off embassy grounds at night?”